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Tonight two things caught my attention from all the stuff the blundered in and out of my brain during the day...the first was a bit from a Tony Award acceptance speech and the second was the last three pages of dialogue from a taped episode of In Plain Sight. They not only caught my attention, it was almost as if someone or something nudged me and highlighted them with a bright yellow marker.
The first was shouted into the microphone, a small quote, by an overwhelmed actress accepting her first tony for a role she slaved and fought over - she stated: when the dust settles, and we are gone - it is not for our politics or wars that we will remembered, but for our art - our expression, what we've said about the world and what we've learned regarding it. Art is our finest contribution. For it is within art, that we find ourselves. (I think no, I know I got the phrasing wrong.)
At any rate, tonight I was watching In Plain Sight - the episode was unusual, in that instead of focusing on Mary and her issues, instead we spent most if not all the episode in the point of view of her partner Marshall and his witness, Norman Baker. Norman Baker is an engineer. He engineered a bridge that collasped and killed over 200 people. He is so certain that it was not his fault, that he went to the contractor who obtained the supplies and accused him - he even goes into witness protection. Insisting that it was the weaker brand of steel that caused the bridge to fail. The contractor had to be fair - threatened Norman's life - hence the witness protection, and had a record of doing so. But as the story unfolds, Norman discovers that the bridge failed due to the design - his calculations had been wrong. The same calculations he'd used on 26 other bridges. He states that he had been so certain of his own greatness, so full of himself, that he failed to see that he was wrong. Meanwhile, the US Marshalls, Marshall and Mary screw up in their hunt for Norman, and their assumptions regarding him. As Mary states at one point, is it just me, or have we not gotten anything right all day?
At the very end, they find Norman on one of the 26 bridges he created, he has rigged it with nitrogylcerine to explode. He will be the only casualty. He rigs it after forcing the contractor to confess, then doing so himself.
Marshall aghast states the following, and when he stated it, I found myself sitting forward in my seat and then jotting each word that he said and that followed, rewinding to make sure I got them right. I have paraphrased in places, but the main quotes in bold are word for word.
Marshall: "Everyone has failures in life, ultimately all of us fail, the acqueducts of Rome will fail, who we are, the standards by which we are measured lies in our response to those failures - my dad used to tell me, you don't fail until you quit - please don't quit, Norman. I know it is cliche, but it is all I got. If you blow up this bridge Norman - that will be a collasal mistake."
Norman: (counting down to when he'll pull the switch that will blow up the bridge: 10) You don't understand. "I can't go from someone who thought he never got it wrong to someone who has never been right once, I'm just not that flexible."
Mary: "So what you plan doesn't go the way you want that happens to everyone. You plan your life, you think it is all going to work out but it doesn't something stupid, some flaw in the works and it all, it all just falls apart, and it sucks, it's just not fair."
Pause. Norman still counting. He's to 5 now.
Norman: (3) "No, it is fair, I screwed up. Get her off the bridge, please."
Mary: "How about you blow up this bridge? You take me with you? How's that for fair?"
Mary struggles as Marshall pulls her off the bridge, arguing with him. "Why," she states.
And Marshall responds, "Because I know my witness. He will blow up the bridge."
Later, after Norman has blown up the bridge with himself on it, Marshall is talking to Mary's sister Brandy on the phone. Brandy is doing an English class paper and the assignment is what her sister or a close family member thinks of her. While Mary sleeps, Marshall gives Brandy the answers.
Brandy: "What would Mary say my Tragic Flaw is?"
Marshall: "If she were being honest, not sugar-coated, she'd say: you shed your failures like a raincoat and get up day after godawful day expecting things to work out even though it seems they never do."
Pause
"And what she isn't aware of is, is her comment says as much if not more about her than it does about you...and that is she can't accept failure is a part of life the most important part, it's the part that teachs us things and it's the part that hurts"
Mary opens her eyes, clearly having heard and we hear her thoughts in a voice over:
People talk too much. People think to much. We're all village idiots enamored of our own shadows oblivious to the setting sun.
We celebrate the successes in life through our award shows, and laugh at our failures in the raspberries...but it is I think, more often than not, the failures that haunt us. The failed friendships, romances, reltaionships, tests, novels, job assignments...those moments of conversation or discourse that we wish we could delete or take back. Whether it be an email, text, twitter, blog/discussion board post, or spoken word. And may alas even try to. Old regrets. Old hurts. Old wounds.
Likewise is the desire to have a lasting impact, to know we made a difference, contributed, and to be respected for it - much like Alice Ripley states above in her acceptance speech - for the Broadway musical that I must admit I knew little about and I'm sure is not making the bucks that Billy Elliot is. A quiet musical about of all things, a woman struggling with manic depression and the effects it has on her family. The number I saw from that musical caused my skin to goosebump...where she and her family sing at one another, trying yet failing somehow to communicate. Their failure raw on the stage.
I wrote more but I deleted it...for I fear I am becoming the villiage idot, enamoured of my own shadow dancing across this page, thinking far too much and talking far too much...oblivious of the setting sun glistening on the horizon beckoning me to my bed and not quite eternal rest.
The first was shouted into the microphone, a small quote, by an overwhelmed actress accepting her first tony for a role she slaved and fought over - she stated: when the dust settles, and we are gone - it is not for our politics or wars that we will remembered, but for our art - our expression, what we've said about the world and what we've learned regarding it. Art is our finest contribution. For it is within art, that we find ourselves. (I think no, I know I got the phrasing wrong.)
At any rate, tonight I was watching In Plain Sight - the episode was unusual, in that instead of focusing on Mary and her issues, instead we spent most if not all the episode in the point of view of her partner Marshall and his witness, Norman Baker. Norman Baker is an engineer. He engineered a bridge that collasped and killed over 200 people. He is so certain that it was not his fault, that he went to the contractor who obtained the supplies and accused him - he even goes into witness protection. Insisting that it was the weaker brand of steel that caused the bridge to fail. The contractor had to be fair - threatened Norman's life - hence the witness protection, and had a record of doing so. But as the story unfolds, Norman discovers that the bridge failed due to the design - his calculations had been wrong. The same calculations he'd used on 26 other bridges. He states that he had been so certain of his own greatness, so full of himself, that he failed to see that he was wrong. Meanwhile, the US Marshalls, Marshall and Mary screw up in their hunt for Norman, and their assumptions regarding him. As Mary states at one point, is it just me, or have we not gotten anything right all day?
At the very end, they find Norman on one of the 26 bridges he created, he has rigged it with nitrogylcerine to explode. He will be the only casualty. He rigs it after forcing the contractor to confess, then doing so himself.
Marshall aghast states the following, and when he stated it, I found myself sitting forward in my seat and then jotting each word that he said and that followed, rewinding to make sure I got them right. I have paraphrased in places, but the main quotes in bold are word for word.
Marshall: "Everyone has failures in life, ultimately all of us fail, the acqueducts of Rome will fail, who we are, the standards by which we are measured lies in our response to those failures - my dad used to tell me, you don't fail until you quit - please don't quit, Norman. I know it is cliche, but it is all I got. If you blow up this bridge Norman - that will be a collasal mistake."
Norman: (counting down to when he'll pull the switch that will blow up the bridge: 10) You don't understand. "I can't go from someone who thought he never got it wrong to someone who has never been right once, I'm just not that flexible."
Mary: "So what you plan doesn't go the way you want that happens to everyone. You plan your life, you think it is all going to work out but it doesn't something stupid, some flaw in the works and it all, it all just falls apart, and it sucks, it's just not fair."
Pause. Norman still counting. He's to 5 now.
Norman: (3) "No, it is fair, I screwed up. Get her off the bridge, please."
Mary: "How about you blow up this bridge? You take me with you? How's that for fair?"
Mary struggles as Marshall pulls her off the bridge, arguing with him. "Why," she states.
And Marshall responds, "Because I know my witness. He will blow up the bridge."
Later, after Norman has blown up the bridge with himself on it, Marshall is talking to Mary's sister Brandy on the phone. Brandy is doing an English class paper and the assignment is what her sister or a close family member thinks of her. While Mary sleeps, Marshall gives Brandy the answers.
Brandy: "What would Mary say my Tragic Flaw is?"
Marshall: "If she were being honest, not sugar-coated, she'd say: you shed your failures like a raincoat and get up day after godawful day expecting things to work out even though it seems they never do."
Pause
"And what she isn't aware of is, is her comment says as much if not more about her than it does about you...and that is she can't accept failure is a part of life the most important part, it's the part that teachs us things and it's the part that hurts"
Mary opens her eyes, clearly having heard and we hear her thoughts in a voice over:
People talk too much. People think to much. We're all village idiots enamored of our own shadows oblivious to the setting sun.
We celebrate the successes in life through our award shows, and laugh at our failures in the raspberries...but it is I think, more often than not, the failures that haunt us. The failed friendships, romances, reltaionships, tests, novels, job assignments...those moments of conversation or discourse that we wish we could delete or take back. Whether it be an email, text, twitter, blog/discussion board post, or spoken word. And may alas even try to. Old regrets. Old hurts. Old wounds.
Likewise is the desire to have a lasting impact, to know we made a difference, contributed, and to be respected for it - much like Alice Ripley states above in her acceptance speech - for the Broadway musical that I must admit I knew little about and I'm sure is not making the bucks that Billy Elliot is. A quiet musical about of all things, a woman struggling with manic depression and the effects it has on her family. The number I saw from that musical caused my skin to goosebump...where she and her family sing at one another, trying yet failing somehow to communicate. Their failure raw on the stage.
I wrote more but I deleted it...for I fear I am becoming the villiage idot, enamoured of my own shadow dancing across this page, thinking far too much and talking far too much...oblivious of the setting sun glistening on the horizon beckoning me to my bed and not quite eternal rest.
